Ink Spots is a blog dedicated to the discussion of security issues across the spectrum of conflict and around the world. Our contributors are security professionals with interests and expertise ranging from counterinsurgency, stability operations, and post-conflict environments to national security strategy, security cooperation, and materiel acquisition. We hope this site will be a forum for discussion on both the issues of the day and broader, long-term developments in the security sphere.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Everyone knows scare tactics are a favored approach of the defense-industrial lobby. "One day the Chinese will be able to defeat us in the air/at sea/from afar/in space/in cyberspace!", they say. "The Russians are looking feisty these days, ain't they?", they might hint. "You know, I understand you guys spending money on language training and tea-drinking and whatnot, but is the Taliban really an existential threat to America?"

CHICAGO—With the airline industry continuing to suffer under the ongoing recession, the Boeing Company was forced Monday to lay off Al Freedman, the only guy left at the corporation who knows how to keep wings from falling off planes. "We used to have a whole team of engineers who knew how to make the wings stay on, but those days are long gone," Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr. said. "We'll make it work, though. The wings are not necessarily the most important part of the plane, anyway." McNerney added that at least they were able to save the job of the guy who knows how to prevent jet engines from exploding.

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